Hawkeye.5318

Very Clunky, too much work for almost no pay off. Energy mechanics current design means the class actually works much better with D/D or Staff then Hammer. - Make the Sphere well follow you around (you learned this lesson with Scrapper already). This also goes into the nice fantasy of a walking storm the rest of the spec is giving. - Remove energy as a mechanic completely. It isn't adding anything to the design, the Sphere already has a cooldown, and the design of it makes fast hitting weapons work better. (If you dont remove it, at least give it a druid style UI. the bar is impossible to see) - The orbs on Hammer 3 need to be instant cast, this improves the flow a ton. They also need to last a little longer (~8s) since the hammer skill cast times are so long its nearly impossible to build all 4 up and still use other skills - Remove Grand Finale, and let Hammer 3 be re-castable so you can just keep chaining through elements and make them permanently up - Air Hammer 5 is a horrifically bad skill that needs its own call out. The delay on the explosion should be removed completely. Even core tyria open world mobs easily walk out of this skill without getting stunned. - Not enough fields and finishers for a spec entirely designed around them. Again makes you want to just use a staff dagger or even scepter. Air 2 /Earth 2 / Water 5 should be whirls, etc

Really solid. In particular I love the "Block" line of traits, it feels really kitten unique and fun. Best of the 3 new elites, and I say that as a Necro main

The name is Horrendous. The spec has nothing to do with control, casting, or anything else that Willbender brings to mind. Please rename it Zealot or Vindicator or something

Shroud: Excellent animations, feel, everything Pistol: Again, really solid Elixirs: Ground up redesign needed. Uninspired effects (wheres one that releases a poison cloud? one that buffs my next attacks with a unique effect? all just boons?). The AoE trait should make them ground targets instead of around the necro. The icons are way too basic. Traits: Why does every elite this expansion need to be Power/Boon/Condi? Older specs picked 2 of the 3 and it was fine.That leaves them feeling more unique, and gives room for more fun/interesting/survival based traits. One of the three lines should be removed and made more interesting traits. At the least the two Major Adept Blight traits should be combined.

I know this is kinda an old thread, I just noticed the new Dread (missed the change on that patch and had been using Close to Death). Yeah but its not reliable like at all. If you pick a offensive based GM trait you want a reliable, frequent benefit, not a lucky random corrupt. Some classes also dont have stab in the first place or simply can decide not to use the skill. Look at Elementalist fire GM traits for example. The benefit of every GM is there on every weapon while attuned to fire, and across other skills as well. You only pick what kind of reliable advantage you want. Thats good design, its a benefit, not limiting the class.. If you want a "reliable and frequent" use of this trait you are forced to pick staff and maybe fear ring which is limiting you by quite a lot. From my testing fear ring is absolutely horrendous in terms of reliability. It’s skill meant for applying protection and area denial, it has absolutely no offensive play, even in pve. Staff skill 5 is pretty good though Whats also a big factor is that spite has no synergy with this GM whatsover. Usually, if a grandmaster or master trait resolves around a condition or boon, the rest of the line provides said boon or condition, see protection for deathmagic, or to some extend the synergy between crit and condi on crit with curses. Spite does not do anything in that regard. Now if one trait category would have dread, terror and fear of death there would be at least some conceptual sense.This is where I agree that Focus 4 getting a fear would make a lot of sense, it makes the top line of Spite the "Focus line", since its a focus trait, an auto-cast focus skill, and then the fear trait. Remove the Ammo and the Vuln, up the cooldown to like 25 seconds, and give it a 1 second fear. Now its big, slow moving animation makes sense (its actually worth trying to dodge) and it is centralized as a ranged utility/CC offhand. The 4 can't crit, only does a small mount of lifesteal and a CC, and the 5 is mostly for boonrip. Could even bring the range of the weapon down to 900 if it ends up too strong.

This trait is still really bugged, it also doesn't work consistently on rune of the pack. The first trigger (right after you enter combat) refreshes opening strike like 1/4 of the time